Commentary on Susan Bradley: pride or prejudice – issues in the history of children’s nursing education

Abstract

The paper by Susan Bradley provides both sobering and challenging reading. She discusses an issue of nurse education in the UK that arose more than a century ago but which remains a matter for sometimes acrimonious debate. The issues may seem alien to readers from outside the UK where centres of excellence in paediatric treatment, care, and nursing exist without specialist registration in child health nursing. However, in the UK, as Susan Bradley explains, specialist registration, professional educational preparation, and clinical career prospects have been inextricably intertwined in a complex and sometimes illogical manner from the dawn of formal nurse training and registration. It may be considered a sad indictment that some of the issues that pepper the history of child health nursing in the UK seem to be so obviously present even today. The primacy of professional jealousy over rational deliberation; the lack of focus on patients’ needs and how these may best be addressed; finding ways to instil within nurses competence in fundamental clinical skills; the insufficient supply of specialist child health nurses; pressure on training places and the ability of clinical nurses to supervise the larger number of students; and the inadequacy of clinical career pathways each still exercise the minds of clinicians, managers, educators, and policy-makers. The current day sees requirements, opportunities, and challenges for children’s nurses in both preparatory education and the maintenance of effective clinical practice, and a number of questions remain outstanding in each of these.